Archived Forced AE reductions for anual reviews

[Tybalt]

Like many others, upon getting ready to deliver my teams reviews I found that reductions had been made in several tm's AE score after our initial AE meeting where scores were discussed and agreed upon. While there were somewhat reasonable explanations for most of the reductions, what irked the **** out of me was that the primary reasoning listed in pretty much every case was budget and payroll considerations.

On a limited, small level, I understand the financial burden stores face with increased pressure coming from group and regional level management. On a more personal and moral level, it is COMPLETE CRAP that company budget concerns should dictate a forced change in my teams ratings. Most of them work very hard in a job with little pay, little satisfaction and ungodly amounts of stress, and seeing their pay increase decreased makes me feel like I have failed them as a leader.

/end rant

 

[Target Annie]

this is the reason it seems ridiculous to spend so much time on the entire review process, meetings, writing and re-writing the reviews. The end result of all your work and effort, and your team members efforts is now a moot point.

You haven't failed them - it's not your fault.

 

[tgtfla]

You obviously care about your tms,please please continue to do so as it really does make a difference,this is something out of your control and very difficult to know how to deal with especially when you have to give out the reviews and justify the score.Good luck with that.

 

[Tybalt]

this is the reason it seems ridiculous to spend so much time on the entire review process, meetings, writing and re-writing the reviews. The end result of all your work and effort, and your team members efforts is now a moot point.

You haven't failed them - it's not your fault.

Only larger waste of payroll being self review, seeing how they are determined far, far in advance

 

[commiecorvus]

You're one of the good ones.
Thanks for being there and caring.
Sorry Spot makes it so damn hard to do it right.

 

[redeye58]

^True this, Tybalt. I wish I had a TL that cared about their team as much as you.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

With ae12, fight for the good tm!

 

[tgtgrl4life]

I completely agree with you. I haven't gotten my reviews back yet to give out, but I saw when I was given the final scores that they were lower than what we had agreed on. The sad part is, I feel that we wasted our time sitting in that office going over positive and negative points for each team member, only to have them changed anyways. Our HR even told us we couldn't lower someone's score if they weren't on a CA (and believe me, we wanted to on several occasions), yet they did it anyways. I have a few TMs that are oustanding TMs, yet their scores say otherwise. What's worse, is that I have to explain how the scores don't exactly match their performance on a daily basis, and hope that they don't laugh at me, or worse, walk out the door. Should be a freaking blast...

 

[greydot]

My review was the biggest joke in the entire world. It, in fact, has cemented the deal that I need to get a new job asap. I knew time was limited was the insurance running out at the end of the year - but this just makes it that much more clear.

 

[Tybalt]

As I have been delivering the reviews, a LARGE part of me wants to inform my team about how their rating is not what I had decided, and that my hand had been forced in lowering their overall score, but i still need to keep my employment so this isnt really an option. The resignation and disbelief on some of there faces is enough to crush what little of my soul remains after being in this job for as long as I have...

 

[StateofTarget]

As I have been delivering the reviews, a LARGE part of me wants to inform my team about how their rating is not what I had decided, and that my hand had been forced in lowering their overall score, but i still need to keep my employment so this isnt really an option. The resignation and disbelief on some of there faces is enough to crush what little of my soul remains after being in this job for as long as I have...

I told every TM every year (except the few that really did deserve IE and U....) that the ETLs had told me what score they would get. I was going to be damned if I let my team despise me to protect the ETLs. You can't get in trouble for telling the TMs that the ETLs gave you the scores. If for some reason any ETL actually did want to make it an issue, just spin it as "I informed the TM that the scores were created in consultation with the executive team". What are they going to say? The ETL has to sign the review paper, and the TM can clearly see that. Not exactly a big secret that they had a hand in it....

 

[commiecorvus]

I'm worried. My TL was so excited to give me my review a few weeks ago and now she seems to be avoiding me.... I still haven't got my review.

That doesn't bode well.

 

[Elandora]

I'm worried. My TL was so excited to give me my review a few weeks ago and now she seems to be avoiding me.... I still haven't got my review.

Same thing happened to me.... my TL has given me a pathetic "I lost your review" excuse for whatever reason i cant even begin to imagine.... our ETL-HR tried to give me my review but she couldn't find it in my TL's folder. All my fellow TMs have received reviews already.

 

[StateofTarget]

I remember one year my ETL sat me down for my review, gave me a copy of the review, and started reading the paragraphs to me. (Like I was too stupid to read) Honestly I had already read most of the review before she even started reading it to me. It said it was my review. Had my name and everything at the top. Though, I noticed on some of the paragraphs of text it had my name.... but some other paragraphs had another TLs name.

Anyway, she was reading and said "You do a great job leading the team Robert". (my name is NOT Robert FYI) Then she grabbed the review from me and said we will do the review later.

Basically she was so lazy she simply took a review she wrote for another TL and tried to change the names so she wouldn't have to write anything new. She was so lazy she didn't even double check to make sure she changed all the names.

Later that day we did the review again. Same thing was written all through the review, but now all the names had been changed. Talk about a joke....

But then again, this was also the idiot who bragged that she paid other people to write her papers in college, so I wasn't really all that surprised.

 

[StateofTarget]

Same thing happened to me.... my TL has given me a pathetic "I lost your review" excuse for whatever reason i cant even begin to imagine.... our ETL-HR tried to give me my review but she couldn't find it in my TL's folder. All my fellow TMs have received reviews already.

More than likely she hasn't even written your review....

 

[redeye58]

"The dog ate your review...."
Bad Spot! Bad dog!

 

[Athena]

Same thing happened to me.... my TL has given me a pathetic "I lost your review" excuse for whatever reason i cant even begin to imagine.... our ETL-HR tried to give me my review but she couldn't find it in my TL's folder. All my fellow TMs have received reviews already.

Yes! This is the excuse I received last year.

 

[dek067]

I told every TM every year (except the few that really did deserve IE and U....) that the ETLs had told me what score they would get. I was going to be damned if I let my team despise me to protect the ETLs. You can't get in trouble for telling the TMs that the ETLs gave you the scores. If for some reason any ETL actually did want to make it an issue, just spin it as "I informed the TM that the scores were created in consultation with the executive team". What are they going to say? The ETL has to sign the review paper, and the TM can clearly see that. Not exactly a big secret that they had a hand in it....

but they don't. if you guys agreed on a score for preliminary reasons, it gets submitted on up. the etls didn't yank your tm review scores. HQ did (or actually district, group, region). all stores budget together. 90% of etls could care less what you make because targets payroll system doesn't distinguish between $$$ when assigning hours. they're not so evil that they would intentionally take someone's money away once it was agreed on.
if you store didn't make sales or payroll, your reviews will drop. it doesn't matter if you have a dtk score of 99. we had this happen last year. also, if they submit the scores too low, other stores will get what you don't spend. i helped key the reviews in for district perusal two years ago. it's a nightmare. maybe your team members are good, but not as good as someone else's once the big pic was looked at. they have to meet budget for the district. don't get me started on how wrong that is in theory, but don't throw your etls under the bus for it either. they're dealing within the same guidelines for reviews as tl. now is an excellent time to show how you lead your team even when you don't agree with the direction you are given and demonstrating courage in a constructive manner to help drive change.

 

[StateofTarget]

but they don't. if you guys agreed on a score for preliminary reasons, it gets submitted on up. the etls didn't yank your tm review scores. HQ did (or actually district, group, region). all stores budget together. 90% of etls could care less what you make because targets payroll system doesn't distinguish between $$$ when assigning hours. they're not so evil that they would intentionally take someone's money away once it was agreed on.
if you store didn't make sales or payroll, your reviews will drop. it doesn't matter if you have a dtk score of 99. we had this happen last year. also, if they submit the scores too low, other stores will get what you don't spend. i helped key the reviews in for district perusal two years ago. it's a nightmare. maybe your team members are good, but not as good as someone else's once the big pic was looked at. they have to meet budget for the district. don't get me started on how wrong that is in theory, but don't throw your etls under the bus for it either. they're dealing within the same guidelines for reviews as tl. now is an excellent time to show how you lead your team even when you don't agree with the direction you are given and demonstrating courage in a constructive manner to help drive change.

Actually, yes, the ETLs did make the final call.

All HQ does is say "you have this much money to give in raises". So maybe your store can have 7 O's, 30 EXs, 60 IEs, etc.

The point is that *after* we TLs sit down with the ETLs and come up with scores we are not included anymore past that point. The ETLs then take those scores, figure out what scores HQ will allow, and the change scores accordingly.

So, for example, we might decide as TLs to give Tom and Sarah an "O". Later on the ETLs figure out how many scores they can give out. Turns out HQ says only one "O" can be given oout. Tom and Sarah can still get an "O" at this point, but they decide *by themselves without consulting TLs* that Sarah deserves the "O" more and change Tom to an "EX". However, we as TLs might feel Tom deserves the "O" more and Sarah should get the "EX".

So yes, when I tell TMs ETLs decided the score they really did. Now, if ETLs came back *after* they found out what HQ would allow and consult us as to what the new scores should be, then I would say TLs were responsible for it. But in the end, ETLs make the final call as to who "deserves" the higher scores the most.

 

[Rarejem]

This is SOOO ridiculous! It is comparable to a teacher telling her student that she has a score of 85% on the test and then goes to the test to figure out how to make the score be 85% regardless of how many questions have been answered correctly or incorrectly...."well, we're at 89%....let's take off for spelling now until we can get that score down to where it fits my curve!" Totally ridiculous and poor incentive.

 

[greydot]

Honestly - I really wouldn't even care if the raise percentage was lower - it is absolutely ridiculous to change what you are saying that TMs did throughout the year based on a score that no one who works with them - has any hand in. If I did Excellent work, I did excellent work. If I did Outstanding work, I did outstanding work. I don't want the work that I've done thrown out the window because the store is red. Or the district isn't making quota. Wouldn't it be 10,000 times more "effective" to just tie your particular stores raise percentage on this system and not screw with saying that people didn't do as good of a job as they really did? Like, okay T1111 was red - its raises will be tied to x number, but store T2222 was green so its raises are tied to z number? Like i get that they are saying if the store is red it must have $hitty TMs, but thats stupid and hugely demoralizing to the ones that do, do the work and get screwed in this antiquated review system.

like, okay your store was ranked last in the district - you get the least amount of $$ for raises. okay. who would argue that? plus wouldn't that be more store incentive to improve? whatever. i also find it amazing that stores that carry the district in sales can be red but then again, what do i know.

 

[StateofTarget]

"Wouldn't it be 10,000 times more "effective" to just tie your particular stores raise percentage on this system"

Actually they do that - but for TLs and ETLs only.

On our review as a TL, we actually had a place for them to rank us compared to our workcenter. So if you were a hardlines TL and hardlines metrics were red, you took a hit on your review. Even if *your* department was green, say that the TL on the other side of hardlines was the reason hardlines was red, well you also took a hit because you were a "leader" and are thus responsible for it.

TM's still get a chance of getting a good review even if the whole store is red. TLs/ETLs are screwed and have no chance if the store is red.

 

[greydot]

"Wouldn't it be 10,000 times more "effective" to just tie your particular stores raise percentage on this system"

Actually they do that - but for TLs and ETLs only.

On our review as a TL, we actually had a place for them to rank us compared to our workcenter. So if you were a hardlines TL and hardlines metrics were red, you took a hit on your review. Even if *your* department was green, say that the TL on the other side of hardlines was the reason hardlines was red, well you also took a hit because you were a "leader" and are thus responsible for it.

TM's still get a chance of getting a good review even if the whole store is red. TLs/ETLs are screwed and have no chance if the store is red.

I get that, and that sucks. At the same time though - at least it is tied to something real. My review was not based on the work that I actually did. I would rather get a review that reflected the work that I did, and be disappointed with my raise - than to have stuff just made up to fill in boxes.

 

[babytrees]

Same thing happened to me.... my TL has given me a pathetic "I lost your review" excuse for whatever reason i cant even begin to imagine.... our ETL-HR tried to give me my review but she couldn't find it in my TL's folder. All my fellow TMs have received reviews already.

my TL went on vacation....I haven't received mine yet and I don't work again until next Monday....wonderful crud!!

 

[Tybalt]

My major irritation comes from a few factors.

First, I was not informed that some of my teams scores had been changed, it was assumed someone had bothered to tell me so I ended up doing last minute edits. Secondly, budgeted funds should not have been listed as the primary reason given to me for dropping peoples scores from O to ex or ex to e. I could see the point in the secondary reasons given to me, but its crap to list budget first.

Moral with my team is low enough, and now they are not getting the recognition and pay boost they deserve. But that's life at target.

To respond to TargetOldTimer, I don't know that you should be all that worried. As a TL I can tell you, we get far far behind in all our "business side" of being a TL, and your TL was very likely given last minute edits (or maybe she just sucks, god knows there are enough TL and ETL that fit into that designation). I know this will not hold true to all stores, or even all teams within my and other stores, but the way I feel about annual reviews is this: You as a TM should not be surprised by your review, ESPECIALLY those of you falling into the IE/U category. You know how you work, and how well or horribly you perform. I told my team that with a few minor exceptions, you should not be surprised at what you see come review time. And for the most part, they have not been.

As a TL I fell into the lower end of the AE spectrum, and wasn't surprised in the least. My review reflected my leadership status' for the last year, and I wholeheartedly accepted the review, with a few caveats (too many paperwork and unrealistic "business" expectations on top of your on-stage daily roles and goals factored into a lower score. I would love to meet the desk jockey who decides how much time a TL should take to do all their daily tasks in addition to TL/Contrib meetings that run 2 hours longer than expected but should have all you work done each week without going over 40hr ). Frankly, unless your TL completely sucks and does not recognize/coach or provide you with regular feedback, your year-end review should be no surprise to you.

There was one notable exception, which I would LOVE to share here, but even generalizing the situation would be far too revealing of who I am, since the event is well know in the district, group and region.

Best of luck to you, but I think you should be ok.